Lecture: The Nature of the City
Published: 14 March 2016
Professor Jesse Ausubel of The Rockefeller University in New York is visiting the University of Glasgow to deliver a lecture.
Public Lecture: The Nature of the City, Professor Jesse Ausubel
Date: Monday 18 April 2016
Time: 6pm to 7.30pm
Venue: Room 354, James Watt (South) Building
Tickets: Free tickets from Eventbrite
Lecture Abstract
Most people are perfectly happy to live decoupled from nature in beautiful walled cities.
Beauty relaxes people and is therefore one of the most valuable attributes of any environment.
Compact cities together with high yield agriculture can preserve the countryside. Behaviour, diet in particular, makes a difference too. A vegan needs half the land of a carnivore.
The “share economy” could also spare immense amounts of facilities and equipment. Still, people will increase their mobility, ranging further, as range equates with access to resources.
The trick is to provide low-cost speed without paving the land, which means putting more systems underground or perhaps in elevated tubes, and to lift utilization.
While we may enjoy many services within walking distance and speed between cities in maglev trains, we need still to embrace the mud and dogs and cats that build human immune systems.
In the end, beautiful cities best save nature.
Jesse Ausbel
Jesse Ausubel is Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University in New York where he elaborates the technical vision of large, prosperous societies which minimise environmental harm and consumption of land and sea.
To find out more visit The Nature of the City
First published: 14 March 2016
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